>RedHat has replaced Konqueror and KMail by Mozilla and Evolution in the default
>KDE desktop. Who will *want* to use KDE after this? RedHat has turned KDE into a
>cheap and broken rip-off of GNOME. This is a kick in the face for the KDE
>developers.

Hey - I've done that myself. Personally I believe that Mozilla and Evolution are better than Konquerer and KMail for their allotted tasks. I'm still a staunch KDE user - does using the best tools for the job make me a bad person?

The problem here, really, is that the customizations RedHat is making wouldn't give people much chance to really try KDE. Have you dealt with the newbies much? If so, you'd realize that people who are really just starting rarely ever change from defaults. And as such, any user using RedHat will likely start with Gnome, and if they're reasonably comfortable would have little desire to try KDE, if though if they did it's quite possible that they'd like KDE better. Now, suppose the user decides to try out KDE, the other option, they start it, chose RedHat default options (since those must be chosen for a good reason, right?), and see a desktop which looks a whole lot like the one they had before, and it behaves quite similar too, since RedHat has changed many of the default behavior settings KDE uses, which were picked very carefully, and often after spirited discussions with those that are much closer to Gnome. Oh, and all the preferred apps are the same too, so a new user might not even realize that Konqueror and KMail exist. As you see, there is little incentive for someone to continue exploring at this point, since the first few minutes are rather boring -- even though the difference between KDE and Gnome are quite significant in many aspects, it's also the more superificial and changeable look'n'feel preferences that are noticed first.
Thus there is a real possibility that the changes like this would simply not give people a reasonable changed to try out KDE the way it was meant to be used. It's one thing for someone to try Mozilla and Konqueror and decide to use Mozilla, or to try Gnome and KDE and to decided to use Gnome, and quite another for them to try Mozilla and Mozilla and pick Mozilla, and Gnome and KDE groomed ot pretend to be like Gnome and pick Gnome. The former is choise, the latter is 1-party elections.

Woah, is this so difficult to get? KDE isn't made to look like GNOME, both are made to look like something new. RedHat has specifically avoided to make any desktop look like the other (otherwise they could have just used the default GNOME icons, the default GNOME panel layout, etc) becaue they wanted to avoid beeing called biased. Result? GNOME zealots complain that the desktop looks KDE and KDE zealots complain that the desktop looks like GNOME. Talk about stupid.

The new unique look allows both desktop to shine where it really matters: Technology. Users will stick with the desktop that works best best with them, not with the one that looks fancier. I guess you don't want to tell me that KDE has nothing to offer but fancy looking themes and icons? If the look or the default settings suck, then users will dislike both desktops equally or in other word, they will simply dislike RedHat. But most testers so far actually like those settings and the look.

Yeah. People argue that Redhat has the right to do what they're doing, and I guess they have. But Redhat rely on opensource apps, and opensource apps wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the fact that the people who write them (1) scratch their own itch or (2) get credit. Redhat doesn't give KDE peope proper credit. Simple as that.

So RedHat only wants to support a single browser from multiple desktops/window managers. It seems pretty reasonable to choose a slightly more featureful browser that isn't closely affiliated with a particular desktop.

Besides, neither one is more featureful than the other, since both have features the other lacks.

Please use logic people...Browser A, and browser B...Browser A has features D,E,F, Browser B has features X, and Y. Both have features the other lacks, but yet....yes I do believe browser A has more features (3 to 2).

Just an example of the lack of intelligence in this community. Evolution and Mozilla are both better (not great though)...that is why RH made them default, if you want new users to use linux, give them the best tools....if you don't like those tools, then run the others...they are still there.

I use both Mozilla and Konqueror. I vastly prefer Konqueror, and it's due to the integration and beautiful rendering. Mozilla may be able to give me a swedish massage - until it's better at one thing, browsing the web, I'll use Konqueror.

as you speak of newbies, and i, until recently, was one. but judging from my friend's experiences, a hardcore one.
I must object, anybody who isn't just casually trying it will change the defaults and mess with stuff if they are ever going to master it anyway
I have renounced redhat, I can't stand it anymore redhat tries its best to hide all of the scary configuration files from you so you never have to get your hands dirty user frinedliness is what they're going for but redhat is trying to compete with microsoft that sense which completely destroys everything it had going for it.
so I have switched to slackware and am considering debian but redhat is out of the question

as you speak of newbies, and i, until recently, was one. but judging from my friend's experiences, a hardcore one.
I must object, anybody who isn't just casually trying it will change the defaults and mess with stuff if they are ever going to master it anyway
I have renounced redhat, I can't stand it anymore redhat tries its best to hide all of the scary configuration files from you so you never have to get your hands dirty user frinedliness is what they're going for but redhat is trying to compete with microsoft that sense which completely destroys everything it had going for it.
so I have switched to slackware and am considering debian but redhat is out of the question

Offcourse Lycoris is pushing Mozilla as their webbrowser too, but nobody complains about that...

Btw, I think Evolution and Mozilla are better than KMail and Konqueror. Redhat thinks so too, and they have every right to make the best application the default.

And the whole point is that it would be alot easier for newbies to switch desktops. If the default applications where their e-mail settings, bookmarks, and such are stored are "gone", then they are pissed or at the very least confused.

So in your eyes (and many other KDE zealots in this group) Microsoft is right and everybody can stop hacking on microsoft for their monopoly. It is their desktop and they decide what application companies like Dell are installing default on their desktop, namely Microsoft applications integrated in the Desktop, Mozilla as default, we can't have that! Later, when you and your buddies at the end rule the desktop (do you wear a black cape and play organ, Whuhahahaha!) KDE ones off course!!! Oh yeah while your at it, I've some ideas for future enhancement for your 'precious', How about constant nagging pop-up windows when the browser isn't konqueror, or the Instant Messenger isn't a KDE endorsed one! Iritating advertisment pop-ups for KDE applications, Mime types reverting back at login to link to KDE applications, etc! You know what? go and take a look in window XP, I'm sure you find some idea's to make K rule the complete desktop! How about a license manager and remote switch to turn off the desktop when default programs are removed, then they have to get a new license at the KDE purify bureau with brainwash to get started again, All heil to the K!!!

I see KDE is not only mimicking Microsoft on the desktop but the similarities go much deeper

This is completely ridiculous. Grow up. I feel dumber for actually taking the time to read through these comments.

Understand that standardization is the best thing for the Linux community. Varity is a spice of life, but unfortunately incompatibility isn't. Besides, it's not like Null prevents people from downloading their preferred applications. Why do you people insist on wasting your time bickering? If you don't like it, don't download it.

> Understand that standardization is the best thing for the Linux community.

Not necessarily. Applications are the best thing for the Linux community, not standardization. Many win32 apps have weird widgets and such. It's like running GNOME apps on KDE or vice versa. It doesn't really matter.

A lot of you people are missing the point slightly. Sure RH can do whatever they want to a GPL'd desktop, and I'm all for making Linux easier. However, by choosing GTK apps instead of KDE ones in many instances RH have weakened KDE, both by damaging the interoperability of KDE apps, and forcing a user running KDE on null to have vastly more shared libraries loaded. KDE is going to appear a slow, quirky, memory hog - something I think is unfair. Finally, of course people can choose other distros, but RH is by far the biggest, making this a very bad bit of PR for KDE.

Ok, so what if this is bad PR for KDE, cry me a river then build me a bridge. Because all this bickering isn't making KDE any more stable, or making GNOME any more feature-packed. RedHat took the best of both worlds to make NULL (with a slight bias towards GNOME, granted). Hey, they used Xft2 to do font smoothing! What'd ya know, GNOME doesn't use that, I wonder where they got it from... As for choosing GTK+ apps versus QT, um...mozilla and OpenOffice are not GTK+ apps...they are no-mans apps. They didn't choose either Galeon or Konqueror as the default browser...and its an unfortunate coincidence that Konqueror also does everything in KDE. The shared library business is gonna suck too, by the way, but hey, it should be more incentive to merge KDE and GNOME (which, I know, isn't going to happen in my lifetime).

Finally, RedHat has a personal bias towards Nautilus and GNOME...thats obvious, and I must say its unfortunate that they couldn't come up with an all-in-one solution to file browser and web browser. I'd consider this a problem long since dead, but by having both Nautilus and Mozilla, RedHat has failed to address this. In my personal opinion, however, Konqueror was not the obvious choice for this because it is (watch out! personal opinion!) fairly unstable compared to other apps out there...I'm running 3.0.1 and it still crashes on me quite often...

So I'd say shut yer trap and realize that whether RedHat pushes KDE or GTK+ its their freakin' choice. Open-Source is a beautiful thing, don't turn it into a petty M$-style argument, please?

>In my personal opinion, however, Konqueror was not the obvious choice for this
>because it is (watch out! personal opinion!) fairly unstable compared to other
>apps out there...I'm running 3.0.1 and it still crashes on me quite often...

Well, in my experience neither Konqueror _nor_ Nautilus are flaw free, but I have had way more trouble with Nautilus than Konq. And I have actually been using Konq. the most. (This was even on RedHat, with their really buggy KDE packages :-/ )

Now I switched to a distro which takes KDE seriously, devotes time and resources to developing it, and even packages updates continuously..

Another point which I wonder why nobody has asked about is whether RedHat have developed a "RedHat" look for OpenOffice / Mozilla too ? They do not exactly mimic any of the desktops, and thus these heavily used desktop apps would imho make the desktop consistency thingie they talk so nicely about less consistent..

If they _really_ want to do some good, I propose :

- Extend gnome2 / GTK2 to mimic the KDE file dialogue
- Work hard on the GTK2 port of Mozilla, and make themes for Galeon and konqueror to match the "RedHat" look.
- Use Konqueror / Galeon with the new "RedHat look" as the defaults in either desktop choice. (Set Konqui to use KMOZILLA as the default render..)
- Give OpenOffice an overhaul GUI wise to look like the "RedHat" look (icons / styles)

And the next level :

- Port OpenOffice to either GTK2 or KDE widgets .. (probably unrealistic, but imho needed, as it is OpenOffice is veeery slow and big due to relying on a completely separate widget library)

Your idea of consistent is to make Gnome look like KDE, other people's idea of consistent is to make KDE look like gnome. Neither view is very consistent, and both are very biased.

Anyway, to make my rant short, I recently tried the RedHat (null) beta and loved it! I've been a user of Linux since 1997, and have used many different desktop environments, from enlightenment to windowmaker, gnome to kde, and a few others. (null)'s consistent style makes me plumb happy. I always hated the fact that the two desktops looked so different. KDE always looked too much like windows to me, and it's always been slow and buggy (the compiled from source version and the dbeian versions!) for me even on a fast system.

On a side note afaik GTK+ is free on all platforms, Qt is not packaged the same on other platforms (not free I believe). If I as a developer write an app, it won't be for kde, why? Portability. Neither will I write an app specifically for gnome. Why? Portability. However, if I write my app using wxWindows it runs using the closest native API on that platform. GTK+ is the closest native on the *nix platform. MFC on the Win32 platform...

well, it is true that people see thier DE of choice as superior only because they like it better or read a falm they thought was stronger than another. I use my DE because i like the feel of it, i like the look of it. I want apps written for other ToolKits to have the same feel as the apps written for MY choice of Desktop. I don't think we need to have GTK modeled after QT or QT modeled after GTK, but to have the toolkit teams work together to create standards so they can at least communicate with each other. it'd also be nice if they had the same themeing engines so you REALLY get a consistent look. i would like it if QT used pango for fonts, or if GTK could use QT's theme engines. This way they could share a consistent look.

I think we should fire off two AI bots at each other with info about KDE on one and GNOME on the other. but we all know kde would win ;p

Hehe, thanks for not flamin' me about the Nautilus/Konq. thing...just a careful observation, I appreciate it.

I was also well aware that there are plenty of people who swear by KDE/Konq., but the fact of the matter is I was using the Nautilus from the most recent Gnome (2.0.1) and the Konq. from the then/most recent distro (3.0.2) and had been having problems with Konq. more often than Nautilus. And don't get me wrong, I try to love KDE and GNOME equally, but right now I've been on a bit of a GNOME stint and it just seems to work with less "overhead". One thing is that I know what everything is doing under GNOME, I didn't feel that way with KDE.

Anywho, thats a debate that will never be over, quite unlike the Null debate. I think you raise many really good points about the Mozilla-OO.org issues. And I don't think anyone will argue that Gnome2's dialog boxes are really REALLY sub-par. (Though one might argue that that should get better, Gnome 2.0 was really to bring it up to Gtk2)

But yeah, I think redhat is doing a noble thing trying to make a consistent gui, no one else has tried it yet, and hopefully someone else will take it up too...maybe someone with a bias toward KDE instead of GNOME...

good luck to RedHat, I still can't believe they made it through the crash!

Come on people, stop the flame war, u dont like Red Hat, dont use, you dont like GNOME, forget it exists, u dont like KDE, bash it off from your mind... There's always alternatives, so this stupid flame wars or holy wars make no sense... Anyone complains when Mandrake rips off lots of stuff from redhat ? no... no one complains... Now I see some guy saying that KDE should import ideas from XP, cool, in what it concerns to me, the guy should use XP 'cause I dont think we want a wimpy desktop MS alike or a XP clone, do we ?...

Besides when it comes to redhat, they have much more or GNOME hackers, what do you expect ? why dont u people wich stand against GNOME/GTK+ dont give some contribute to redhat ? huh ? not enough stomach for it ?

Give me a break, thats because all of this elitism that Linux didnt took over the destop, too much intelectual capital being wasted in stupid holy wars like this one...

I've been a linux user for quite sometime now. I've been using it for about 7-8 years when it was still in it's early stages and prior to the days of KDE and Gnome.

All I can say is that I think that linux has always needed a more streamlined GUI. Well I have not downloaded NULL yet, I am in the process of doing so right now. From what I have seen from screenshots, I'd have to say that I like what RedHat has done for the most part. However, I can understand some of the arguments for and against what RedHat has done with NULL. One thing I wish that RedHat would do which would make this a non issue is, during the install, to have a KDE and GNOME -only install. And with the Gnome and KDE only installs use the default themes used by each desktop environment. For those who choose to install both Gnome and KDE on their system, then RedHat's concept of a common desktop theme and design makes plenty of sense. That way users will still have the option to do what they want to do. Or alternatively, it would be nice if they at least asked during the install if you wanted to use the default themes or the common RedHat look.

Another area where I agree with others is RedHat's poor support of KDE. Although I have always been more of a Gnome user, I have recently started to take more interest in KDE once again. While I personally don't really care if RedHat chooses to use Gnome as it's default desktop I believe it is still in their best interests to also ensure that they keep KDE up to snuff as well. I am a firm believer in choice. I do not see how RedHat's decision really impacts all that much on choice. True diehard linux users should have enough intelligence to figure out how to make things look and work the way they want anyway. If you can't change a few themes and change which programs are used as the default then maybe you shouldn't be using linux? On the otherhand, if you are a newbie then I don't see why you would even complain about this as it is to your advantage. The changes RedHat are making don't really have any negative impacts on newbies. They have more of a negative impact on the die hard linux elite. And if you are of the linux elite then why don't you quit whining and just change things in NULL to the way you want them?

After all, if you are of the linux elite you should know how to compile things from source. You should know how to compile a kernel. You should know how to do trivial changes such as changing your themes. If you don't know how to do any of the above changes to your system then you are really not an elite Linux user. And most elite linux users would consider you a newbie in which case you shouldn't be complaining about these changes but rejoicing.

quote: "Now I see some guy saying that KDE should import ideas from XP, cool, in what it concerns to me, the guy should use XP 'cause I dont think we want a wimpy desktop MS alike or a XP clone, do we ?..."

The GUI isn't really a good reason for switching to XP (Nothing else either btw even if you, I'm sure, find some advantage with XP).
Many people do like the XP look. Using a similar theme in Linux doesn't turn Linux into Windows.

It does not make any sense to me having two desktop
environments if you want to make a desktop OS.
So if RedHat likes gnome more why don´t they
just use that. Two different desktop is just
perfet for confusing users.

Well a newbie that is confused by the concept of multiple desktops, is probably also someone who will continously click "Next" during the installation procedure without looking at any prompts :-) And by default only Gnome is installed, and no KDE.